Sunday, 19 February 2012

Welcome to my blog!

Hello there and welcome to my blog!

After several months of thinking about it, and a couple of weeks of coming up with ideas to write about, I've finally taken the plunge. Having been inspired by a fellow Tweeter who has also just started blogging, I decided it was about time I put pen to paper, or should I say, fingers to keyboard and write about what I'm most passionate about.

So what can you expect?

Well, firstly, stories about my ancestors. Having been researching my tree for a few years now I want my ancestors' lives to live on forever. I want their stories to be told and remembered. I don't come from titled stock, my ancestors were ordinary people working in the fields, down the mines, in factories. But they are my ancestors and they made me who I am. I'm inordinately proud of all them, even the poachers and petty criminals. Currently their stories are written down on scraps of paper, or in notebooks, as well as scrawled on the backs of newspapers whilst my relatives spring a new fact or date on me unexpectedly. So by writing this blog, I hope that their incredible lives won't be forgotten.

Also in this blog, I aim to write about those historical figures that really interest me. They may be monarchs or nobility or just intriguing people who deserve to have their names as well known as possible. In researching one particular character I found quite a lot about her on the web, and in a moment of doubt thought, well, why blog about someone whose life is quite well documented? But, I thought, as I'd never actually heard of her until a trip to Australia last year, why not blog about her amazing life. I'll spread the word! Expect a post about this particular individual in the near future.

I'm away now to prepare for Who Do You Think You Are? Live at London's Olympia next Friday. It's time to rummage through my notebooks and find those crucial scraps of paper so I'll have my questions prepared, and hopefully be able to break down some of those brick walls.